This year’s theme for World Hand Hygiene Day is “Accelerate Action Together. Save Lives – Clean Your Hands".
Doha: On the occasion of World Hand Hygiene Day, observed on May 5, the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) engaged in the 12th hand hygiene campaign in line with the international community’s activities.
The campaign targets all primary health care staff and the society in general through offering awareness lectures that stress the importance of hand hygiene and proper hand hygiene.
This year’s theme for World Hand Hygiene Day is “Accelerate Action Together. Save Lives – Clean Your Hands” and the event was held on May 7.
PHCC’s Communicable Diseases and Infection Prevention Department said that the engagement in the World Hand Hygiene Day aims to improve and consolidate hand hygiene practices and motivate the community and staff in health care centers to reduce the rate of health-care–associated infections, noting that this is everyone’s responsibility.
The campaign also aims to educate staff and patients in health centers to prevent the spread of microbes, especially during COVID-19 pandemic, as many diseases are transmitted through direct contact with others, the surrounding environment, offices, beds, etc. For that reason, lack of hand hygiene is behind the spread of many types of bacteria and diseases, such as COVID-19 virus, seasonal influenza, diarrhea, etc.
Executive Director of PHCC’s Preventive Health Directorate, Dr. Hamad Al Mudahka said that PHCC is working to avoid various risks that may occur in health centers, including preventing the transmission of microbes, as hands play a major role in the transmission of infectious diseases, especially during COVID-19 pandemic. This is through making sure to provide alcohol-based hand sanitizers, raise awareness of performing hand hygiene using soap and water, and hold events that help consolidate awareness hand hygiene concepts among health center visitors, in addition to complying to other public health measures, such as wearing face masks and following social distancing.
Further, PHCC held awareness lectures for both staff and patients in health centers and distributed leaflets and a questionnaire to gather opinions of staff and patients on hand hygiene.
